Family Guy season 4

• Seth MacFarlane as Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Glenn Quagmire, Tom Tucker, Carter Pewterschmidt • Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin, Loretta Brown, Tricia Takanawa, Babs Pewterschmidt • Seth Green as Chris Griffin, Neil Goldman • Mila Kunis as Meg Griffin Supporting characters • Lori Alan as Diane Simmons • H. Jon Benjamin as Carl • Johnny Brennan as Mort Goldman • Carrie Fisher as Angela • Mike Henry as Cleveland Brown • Nicole Sullivan as Esther • Patrick Warburton as Joe Swanson • Adam West as Mayor Adam West ==Episodes==

In 2002, Family Guy was canceled after three seasons due to low ratings. Fox tried to sell rights for reruns of the show, but it was hard to find networks that were interested; Cartoon Network eventually bought the rights, " basically for free", according to the president of 20th Century Fox Television Production. Following this, the show's first season was released on DVD in April 2003. making it the best-selling television DVD of 2003 and the second highest-selling television DVD ever, behind the first season of Comedy Central's ''Chappelle's Show''. The season 2 DVD release also sold more than 1 million copies. Gail Berman said cancelling the show was one of her most difficult decisions, and she was therefore happy it would return. The network also began production of a film based on the show. MacFarlane believed the show's three-year hiatus was beneficial because animated shows do not normally have hiatuses, and towards the end of their seasons "... you see a lot more sex jokes and (bodily function) jokes and signs of a fatigued staff that their brains are just fried". Walter Murphy, who had composed music for the show before its cancellation, returned to compose the music for "North by North Quahog". Murphy and the orchestra recorded an arrangement of Bernard Herrmann's score from North by Northwest, a film referenced multiple times in the episode. Fox had ordered five episode scripts at the end of the third season; these episodes had been written but not produced. One of these scripts was adapted into "North by North Quahog". The original script featured Star Wars character Boba Fett, and later actor, writer and producer Aaron Spelling, but the release of the iconic film The Passion of the Christ inspired the writers to incorporate Mel Gibson into the episode. Multiple endings were written, including one in which Death comes for Gibson. During production, an episode of South Park was released entitled "The Passion of the Jew" that also featured Gibson as a prominent character. This gave the Family Guy writers pause, fearing accusations " that we had ripped them off." ==Reception==

Ratings The season received high Nielsen ratings; the season premiere, "North by North Quahog", was broadcast as part of an animated television night on Fox, alongside two episodes of The Simpsons and the pilot episode of American Dad!. The episode was watched by 11.85 million viewers, the show's highest ratings since the airing of the first season episode "Brian: Portrait of a Dog". Its ratings also surpassed the ratings of both episodes of The Simpsons and American Dad!. bringing the season average to 7.9 million viewers per episode. Awards and nominations The season was nominated for a number of awards. In 2005, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominated "North by North Quahog" for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). It nominated "PTV" in the same category one year later. Neither of the episodes won the award, as South Park received the award in 2005 and The Simpsons was the eventual recipient of the award in 2006. Peter Shin and Dan Povenmire were both nominated for an Annie Award in the Best Directing in an Animated Television Production category, for directing "North by North Quahog" and "PTV" respectively; Shin eventually won the award. MacFarlane won the Annie Award for Best Voice-over Performance for providing the voice of Stewie in "Brian the Bachelor". The editors of the episode "Blind Ambition" won the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Animated. Critical reception Season 4 received positive reviews from critics. Reviewing the season premiere, Mark McGuire of The Times Union wrote: "... the first minute or so of the resurrected Family Guy ranks among the funniest 60 seconds I've seen so far this season." The Pitt News reviewer John Nigro felt that the show had not lost its steam while it was on hiatus, and was surprised that the show had been canceled because of its "wildly extravagant shock factor". In 2007, BBC Three named the episode "PTV" "The Best Episode...So Far". The episode has also been praised by Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, who called it "Family Guys most rebellious outing yet". The Boston Globe critic Matthew Gilbert felt Family Guys fourth season was as "crankily irreverent as ever". Critics of both PopMatters and IGN criticized the first few episodes but felt the show regained its humor after "Don't Make Me Over"; IGN's Mike Drucker commented "At that point, we get some amazingly creative humor. It's almost like MacFarlane and gang decided they had thanked their fans enough and could return to what made the show successful in the first place." "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz", "Brian Sings and Swings", "Patriot Games", and "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" as "worst show of the week". ==Notes==